As promised...

My story starts like many others. I was a child. Whew! Glad to get that off my chest. lol Yeah, I'm just kidding. Anyway, I grew up in a "traditional" family. This means that my parents got hitched before they popped out my brother and me, and they have yet to separate from each other. My mom and Dad both worked outside the home for most of the time. My Dad was an electrical engineer (whatever that is. Admit it...you have no idea what they do either) and my Mom a nurse. We were a typical Christian family. We prayed before every meal, went to church every Sunday and Wednesday, or every time it was that the church had a gathering of some kind. Dad would even read from the Bible to us and pray before we went to bed EVERY night. (The Bible reading is pretty boring when you are a little kid. Most of the time my brother and I would just make faces at each other to try and get the other one in trouble for giggling.) Everything about that seemed normal to my world. But for some reason I can remember at an early age knowing that I was not "normal."
I was what some people chose to call, a "tomboy". I played with my brother's toys more than my own. My parents eventually caved and started buying me my own G.I. Joes. I loved to be outside and get dirty. I fought my way on to the soccer field to play with the other kids during recess, who were all boys (thus the fight). My Mom bought dolls and purses for me but they were never brought down from the shelves or used. I still hate pink! Dresses were only for church because I HAD to. Are you getting the picture yet? It was a little frustrating that family members would be so insistent on pushing "girly" things on me, but beyond that I really did not mind being different. It didn't really bother me until the middle of my 4th grade year. My Dad's company merged with another company on a project they were doing and translation, we had to move. I didn't just change school zones, I changed states. I can understand how a change like that might not seem like a big deal, but to a "tomboy" that didn't know it yet..moving in the middle of the school year was extremely hard. We all have moments of our life, maybe in our childhood, that we would like to erase or at best rewrite. Well, 4th grade is that for me DEFINITELY.
I was the new kid and was shy around people I didn't know. Unless I was spoken to, I did not speak. Unless someone looked at me, I did not stare and so on. The kids in my class had no mercy for my shyness or for my appearance that was not your typical "girly" look. Repeatedly I was asked if I was a boy or a girl by BOTH girls and boys. Sometimes they would ask as if they really did not know....
I was told I was an alien, a FREAK!. I was told that I was, in fact, a boy trying to disguise myself as a girl. They had their facts lined up for me and listed their observations- I walked like a boy, I dressed like a boy, I looked too ugly to be a girl.

(Ok, I know this is just beginning to get to the good stuff but I really need to shove off to bed now. I will write more either tomorrow or no later than Monday night. Keep checking back and please don't be too shy to leave a comment or ask a question)